Want to be successful at The Bar? Go home early.

Straining every sinew for your clients while forgetting everyone else is a strategy which might bring short-term success. It rarely endures.

“ You can’t have everything you want, but you can have the things that really matter to you.” Marissa Meyer, President and CEO of Yahoo

The ingredients of success

I’ve worked with some of the most successful barristers at the English Bar.  They win awards, increase their rankings year-on-year and command admiring respect from their peers and opponents alike.

Their common characteristics are easily identifiable.  Driven, ambitious and fiercely intelligent.  An unquestionable commitment to justice. 

But those qualities alone don’t turn talent into success, long trials into wealth or status into happiness.  It’s much, much simpler than you think.  

A reputation for decency

Think for a moment about the QC you most admire.  Probably, they appear in the highest courts, give generously to good causes and make time to share their experience with juniors.

Their sentences never start with “I trust you implicitly” because they don’t gossip. They do what they say they’ll do, when they say they’ll do it, so they never have to worry about the shadow of their reputation.

These are the characteristics of people who win the trust of clients. Trusting clients bring repeat instructions and referrals. This leads directly to financial success.

What happens when work becomes the excuse

When barristers discover the tools for networking, content marketing and social media engagement, some set off with the passion of a vegan in pursuit of the instructions those particular activities can yield.

Networking becomes an every-weekday after-work schedule. Writing marketing content fills the weekends. The accumulation of social media likes and shares become an obsession.

The result of this overload of practice development activity takes its toll, and quickly.

A zeal for growing your practice isn’t more important than remaining connected with family and friends. Without them, everything falls apart very quickly.

Woo-woo mumbo-jumbo? Hardly.

Conveying that you’re embedded in a solid support group is reassuring for your clients.  If you’re showing signs of burnout or stress, it’s a risk to their case. It’s not what they want from Counsel.

Having something fun and light-hearted to talk about reduces the stress for everyone, particularly when the pressure piles on. If you haven’t left your room in Chamber for weeks, you’re going to be low on experiences on which you can draw.

So where’s the evidence?

I can’t prove all this evidentially, of course, but from what I observe from my clients, I am sure of one thing.

Barristers who remain closely connected with friends and family are the ones who enjoy the most financial success.

I hope that’s incentive enough to shut down your laptop and go home early tonight.

How to make it happen

In The Business of Barristering programme, we agree a financial target for the year, work out exactly how you’re going to meet it and then book time off for the rest of the year.

Schedule a call with me to find out how to eliminate busy activity which unnecessarily keeps you away from the people who make the hard work worthwhile.

By Heidi Smith
Creator of Jurilogical.com